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Tasked to 'buy in,' Alabama off to good start in 2014, Nick Saban and Tide veterans say

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Alabama head coach Nick Saban works with the DBs during the Crimson Tide's first 2014 Spring football practice, Saturday, March 15, 2014, at the Thomas-Drew Practice Facility in Tuscaloosa, Ala. (Vasha Hunt/vhunt@al.com)

TUSCALOOSA, Alabama -- It started with AJ McCarron's post-game interview following Alabama's Sugar Bowl loss to Oklahoma and didn't let up in the month that followed.

Buy in, McCarron and other departing Alabama players would say, and a result better than the Crimson Tide's 11-2 2013 season would be just around the corner.

Though Alabama coach Nick Saban disagreed with some of McCarron's observations, he's since acknowledged that the Crimson Tide "lost respect for winning" while trying to three-peat.

The pressure of that last part is gone. Instead of trying to replicate its past success, Alabama has shifted its focus toward avoiding the pitfalls that prevented it from reveling in a third consecutive national championship.

"Guys are just a lot more hungry," senior linebacker Trey DePriest said Saturday. "We didn’t finish the season like we wanted to. Guys knew that and they just took a different approach to it, and are trying to get back to the standard to how we do stuff."

Junior wide receiver Amari Cooper said Saban's offseason message centered on "focus" and "finish." The Crimson Tide's leadership group, which is typically filled with the team's seniors and a handful of juniors, has "stepped up," Cooper said.

"I think we lost some focus on the smaller things, like connecting with each other," Cooper said. "We'd been winning a lot. I guess we got accustomed to winning and lost sight of the small things."

DePriest said there's been an increased emphasis in off-field bonding between the team's veterans and younger players. In weeks leading in to the start of spring practice, DePriest said he and sophomore linebacker Ryan Anderson would invite teammates to cookouts at Anderson's house.

When he questioned some of McCarron's remarks, Saban said older players can sometimes forget what it's like to be 17 or 18 years old.

"(We) focus on it and actually spend the time to hang out," DePriest said. "Not just up here as far as football, but off the field so you can built that trust with them."

Since National Signing Day came and went, Saban has been quick to praise Alabama's "focus" throughout its offseason conditioning work. On top of the annual gains and losses in the weight room, he specifically pointed toward the Crimson Tide's "attitude" as a positive.

He used the national platform provided by ESPN on Monday to share that sentiment with the rest of the country.

"This year I find the players are really more focused in terms of the things we need to believe in, the things we need to do, whether it's hard work, discipline, finishing plays, paying attention to details," Saban said. "The kind of things that make big differences in close ballgames."

The start of spring practice simply presented another hurdle to clear on the path toward redemption of the finishes Alabama wishes it could rewrite.

"We didn’t end the season like we wanted to," DePriest said Saturday. "(It's) just the chance to get back out there and actually do some football stuff instead of conditioning. It was a good first day."